


The King and The Lamb

by GreasyLungs



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 19:37:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15493170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreasyLungs/pseuds/GreasyLungs
Summary: After recovering Data on the teleportation device, Ivy Lamb seeks the help of the Brotherhood.





	The King and The Lamb

**Author's Note:**

> *Descriptions of cannon places will be purposefully vague*

The third Gwinnet Ale was a risky chance, the shots of whiskey afterward were an outright mistake. Traveling to the airport alone, losing her entire satchel to a pack of wolves, falling over that railing and shattering her elbow ; This entire venture seemed to be one, big, misstep.

Ivy grinds her feet into the wet coastline sand. The sun will be peeking over the horizon soon and she's dreading the light will reveal the state she's in : Three days of no food, a mangled arm, and a stomach sitting heavy with liquor. If Gage could see her now, he'd have a fit. (No. *Don't think about him now.*) She pulls a stale pack of cigarettes from her left boot. Lighting it proves to be a strain. She inhales slowly, staring off into the murky depths of the water, half expecting this to be her last.  
\---  
What Ivy remembers most about the airport is the people ; More people than she suspected were even alive today, moving and breathing loving moments shared between them in long awaited greetings or tearful goodbyes. Families. Lovers. Soldiers.

When she and Nate first arrived in Boston, they stopped for a sweet roll and an espresso at one café. She can't remember the name for the life of her, but she remembers him. The wrinkles under his eyes as he excitedly told her about all the attractions he'd take her to first.

Even with the Brotherhood's giant Zeppelin hanging overhead, this place is just as dead as the rest of the Commonwealth: All bones, ash, and rubble from a time long dead. The rotting carcass of a whale that all the poor souls of the wasteland build their lives into.

She makes a show of removing her pack and sliding it across the once-road towards the guard's feet. The thud on his power armored leg is confirmation he notices. Her guns come next, as far as she dares to toss them, and by now she can feel the sights from multiple laser rifles burning a hole in her chest. Although it's another gesture lost in the wasteland, she fights the creaking in her elbow to raise both her hands in submission. The bone fragments move like gravel under her skin.

Guards form a semi circle in front of her ; A body wall preventing her further access. It's more for show. These guards are all shaking hands and sweating brows. Perhaps the Brotherhood isn't as formidable as their persona.

She should have seen it coming, but it's a surprise when the butt of a laser rifle hits the back of her head.  
\---  
Copper fills Ivy's mouth as she grinds her teeth. She can hear the rust scraping against her as she shifts in an old chair. Nylon keeps her limbs stiff, the pain in her elbow quickly reaching unbearable at the straight angle they've tied. Considering they could have vaporized her on sight, getting restrained and thrown into an old cargo hanger isn't feeling as bad as it should. Darkness suffocates her. Isolation.

A garage door ascends from the concrete ground, chains cracking through their mechanism. It's unfair how bright the sun is. A row of silhouettes mar her view of anything beyond the threshold. A broad shadow in the middle steps out from it's alignment, the blinding light sinking away behind it as it steps closer. There's a thud from the door before footsteps begin.

Steel. Leather. Fire. Smoke.

The scene plays out like the old detective movies her dad used to watch: A single, flickering, light overhead illuminates a small circle around her.

Ivy's rabid, growling, damn near feral. Fight or flight has her heart in her throat. The chair beneath her whines as she twists in her restraints, rope burns scorching her wrists and ankles.

Heavy footsteps carry an equally heavy man with them. Eyes towards the floor at his approach : The long hem of a leather jacket, the polished boots of a military man. A secondary chair slides parallel to hers, and he sits in inspection. One of his legs crosses the other and there's a rustle of papers, a flick of a lighter 

"Ma'am?" He finally speaks. Young. Angry.

Through the pulse of her own blood through her eardrums, Ivy lifts a heavy head. The light above is too dim to give her any real details. Maybe she's grown delirious from the pain. The wide cherry on his cigar burns into her like the eye of a raging Cyclops, thick ribbons of smoke curling to the invisible ceiling before dissipating into the void themselves. He speaks but it's lost in white noise, like she's underwater. Paper turning. More talking. He sounds angrier now.

"Please. My arm." Ivy moans pathetically. A thin trail of blood travels to the heel of her right shoe.

The man kneels before her.

Nate?

Ivy let's loose an ungodly scream. Her body switches into autopilot, pushing what little energy she has left into her legs. She kicks the ground hard, too hard, sending her and the chair jolting backwards, landing on both her arms and smacking her head against the cold stone floor. 

The garage door slings open, the outside world once agian blinds her. There's more blood down here than she thought. Bodies rushing. Cold fingers wrapping under her neck. Darkness.  
Sleep.  
\---  
The Sick Bay in itself is a warzone. Ivy had pouted about her elbow, until she notices the knight missing his arm up to his.

Cade shoots her up with as much med-x as her body allows before starting on her injury. He's a pleasant enough man, only asking how she managed to obtain such a fracture. He gets a laugh out of her retelling of a mole rat brood startling her over a railing.

Somewhere in between light conversation, Danse comes to her bedside. Hazy recollections from a year ago : Danse. Cambridge. ArcJet. Something about the Palidin reminded Ivy of her brother Danny. Two honorable men with more sense of duty than self. Muddy brown eyes search for the words to comfort. They don't seem to come, maybe not existing at all, Ivy's gunmetal stare having rendered him a Radstag in a head lamp.

"Tell me everything." He finally whispers to her as Cade finishes dressing and setting her elbow.

And so she did tell him, and tell him everything. Kellogg, Nick, Dr. Amari, The Glowing Sea, Virgil.

Shaun.

Her good arm points over to a worn leather jacket neatly folded on a nearby chair.

"Look in the left breast pocket."

The jacket is similar to the Lancer's bomber jackets, but much thicker, older, the lining made from a material Danse has never seen. Its far too big for Ivy, several patches sewn onto the weathered exterior. A patch under the left breast reading "US ARMY", a small yellow patch near the bottom right pocket that reads "AIRBORNE" with a symbol of a bird underneath, and the right breast has a dark patch reading "LAMB". Brass pins on each side of the collar, extensively polished to a beautiful luster, a shining set of wings. Danse has an overwhelming suspicion that this jacket is older than anything Proctor Quinlan has in his collection.

He feels inside the lining to the pocket Ivy had informed, and pulls out a small package wrapped in an animal hide, carefully tied with a green ribbon. The emerald silk slides across itself as he pulls the knot apart. His hands shake. Even free from his power armor, he still feels as if he could crush the package, but instead handles it as carefully as it was bundled. He unwraps the hide to find a small envelope. Inside that, a Holotape and a few pages of what could be blueprints.

"Crayon?" Danse chuckles, skimming through the wrinkled pages.

"Well what do you expect from a super mutant?"

"What about this Holotape?"

"Data from a courser we killed." The use of the word "we" a bitter aftertaste in her mouth. Ivy shakes Gage from her mind. "The way it was explained to me, with these two things, and greater minds than mine, we should be able to construct a teleporter into the institute."

"Wait, a teleporter?"

Danse would have to wait for her answer. Cade insists an hour of chatter is more than adequate, and his patients need their rest.

Sometime between med-x and stimpacks, Ivy does manage sleep among the half-life soldiers in the infirmary.

The next day brings new hell, new pains, new bruises. Cade shoots her up with another stimpack.

"Someone will be here shortly to escort you down to the command deck." Cade almost sounds sorrowful. "I overheard some of what you and Danse were talking about. For what it's worth, both of us are on your side."

"Thank you." Ivy rasps, barely audible, clasping his worn hands in her own. If there were sides, then there's a fight. He grips her hand back tightly, slender fingers on and old, worn hand.

A ginger-haired man in a black Brotherhood uniform comes just as Ivy finishes choking down a can of water. He introduces himself, "Palidin Grafter", a bit too pleasantly for Ivy's liking. The SickBay doors open to a floating metal fortress roaring with life. Unfortunately, she's barred from any of the excitement, and steered directly to her right. Down the ladder she goes.

This level of the Zeppelin is less active, a few footsteps here and there, a shout from below deck. Surprisingly, most of the noise above them is absent. Grafter knocks on a heavy door, the sound reverberating unevenly throughout the hull.

"Come in." A familiar voice through muffled steel.

Grafter waves her in and takes post to the left of the door. Inside is a room comprised almost entirely of windows, an unmatched view of the Commonwealth below. Empty alcohol bottles and half-smoked cigars litter the tables, spilling over onto the floor. A trail of loose papers and manilla folders lead to a small desk with a large man behind it.

Ivy catches her heart in her throat.

The man behind the desk is definitely not Nate. His jaw just as sharp, his eyes just as blue, even his beard as unkempt as her late husband, a virtual twin, but not him. Nate is gone, buried under that giant tree in Sanctuary, the same tree they danced under at block parties, the same tree they helped decorate for Halloween. Reminding herself of this didn't seem to help much.

"Ah, Miss Lamb. My apologies for the mess. Take a seat." Maxson hastily stuffs a fistful of crinkled papers back into his desk drawer.

Ivy tentatively complies to his demand, stepping carefully across what bare floor she can find. The door closes behind her. Far from the woman she was yesterday ; Straight and rigid in the old red chair. Wide eyed. On guard.

"How do you know my name?"

Its unfortunate how pleased Maxson is that he has the upper hand.

"Allow me to introduce myself. Arthur Maxson, Elder of the Eastern Chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel. Your reputation precedes you, it seems, and one with mixed opinions at that. Palidin Danse has already informed me of the offer you're Hoping to make here. I'll tell you the same thing I told him : I will not deal with uncertainties this late in the campaign."

"Then, what is this? Your attempt at letting me down easy?"

"Quite the opposite."

Maxson stands and brushes the chest of his battlecoat. A skyscraper of a man in comparison, Ivy's both intimidated and entranced as he starts to pace the room, looking between her, the floor, an an unknown focal point.

"As Elder, I am responsible for the lives of my brothers and sisters in arms, and the well-being of the Brotherhood during and after this occupation. The information you've come here to present could very well be what we need to seal a victory. However, I cannot allow a derailment, and I'm unsure if you can be trusted. Given the circumstances, and considering the opinions of my head officers, I would like to offer you an opportunity to earn that trust."

"Whatever you need, Elder. You just say the word." 

Ivy's voice is more stable than she feels. A carefully constructed mask of indifference that she carries with her at all times; The poker face to end all Poker Faces. Maxson's turn to be off guard.

"For now, you will be placed under the charge of Palidin Danse as Initiate." Maxson comes dangerously close with his last statement, a tactic that's always worked for him in the past. "Know that this is your one chance, Miss Lamb. I expect nothing but complete loyalty to the Brotherhood, to me, from all my soldiers."

An unreadable smile is her only response.

"Dismissed."


End file.
